Huffington Post Names Jimmy Maymann CEO; Tim Armstrong AOL Chairman

The Huffington Post has named AOL executive Jimmy Maymann CEO, replacing Tim Armstrong, who will remain as chairman of AOL, the site announced Thursday morning.

Mayman, formerly AOL's senior vice president of international, will report to founder Arianna Huffington, the media group's president and editor-in-chief. The promotion is effective immediately.

A spokeswoman for HuffPost told TheWrap that, though Armstrong served as the top executive, the CEO slot is novel, part of a shift away from AOL.

"The position of CEO is new for the Huffington Post since the acquisition," she said. "We are moving to a standalone business within AOL."

He will work to expand the site's partnerships with major brands and personalities, such as recent partnerships with Oprah and TED, with a focus on HuffPost's growing 12-hour-long web TV arm, HuffPost Live, the company said.

"Jimmy has been an indispensable partner to me over the past year-and-a-half as we have launched HuffPost around the world," Huffington said in a statement. "It has been a real pleasure working with him on the launch of HuffPost in London, Toronto, Montreal, Paris, Madrid and Rome, and now I look forward to working together as we continue to launch HuffPost across the rest of the globe, and unlock new traffic and revenue potential here at home."

"Each day, I become a bigger believer in the HuffPost brand, and I'm convinced it can be the media brand of the decade if we stay true to our DNA while unlocking the potential of new innovations like HuffPost Live," Maymann said in a statement. "I look forward to taking what I've learned from starting and scaling businesses and applying it to a future where HuffPost keeps identifying and seizing new growth opportunities."

HuffPost has grown to one of the largest news portals on the web since its founding in May 2005. Over the last year, the site has launched versions in France, Spain, Italy. It already had in the United Kingdom and Canada.

The move is the latest to put distance between AOL and Huffington Post, with the popular news site functioning with increasing independence from the news portal in the last year since being acquired in 2011 for $315 million.

HuffPost won its first Pulitzer Prize for senior military correspondent David Wood's 10-part series on veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Prior to joining AOL, Maymann co-founded goviral.com, a branded content distribution company acquired by AOL for $96.7m in January 2011. Prior to Goviral, he ran Neo Ideo, a digital consultancy he launched in 1995 and later sold to the advertising agency Leo Burnett in 2000.

Maymann also served on the board of facial recognition company Polar Rose, which was sold to Apple in January 2010.